CHAPTER 40

ON DECEMBER 16, TEN days after the first bombing of Dessie, the emperor received a copy of the secret proposal to end the war. It was prepared by the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare, and the Prime Minister of France, Pierre Laval and christened the Hoare-Laval Pact.

The next morning, the emperor summoned to a press conference the European and American journalists who were camped out in the compound of the hospital. Some already knew of the Hoare-Laval proposal and a few had even read its terms.

The emperor, dressed in his khaki commander-in-chief uniform, was on the porch waiting for them with a prepared statement:

“We desire to state, with all the solemnity and firmness that the situation demands today, that our willingness to facilitate any pacific solution of this conflict has not changed, but that the act by us of accepting even in principle the Hoare-Laval proposal, would be not only a cowardice toward our people, but also a betrayal of the League of Nations and of all the states that have shown that they could have confidence up to now in the system of collective security.”

“Is that all you have to say, Your Majesty?” Granger Walker of The New York Times asked.

“At this time, yes. We are sending a reply to our ambassador in Geneva.”

The emperor returned to his office and requested that Yifru draft a text to be given to the Ethiopian ambassador at the League.

“The government and people of Ethiopia do not ask any people in the world to come to Africa and shed their blood in defense of Ethiopia. The blood of Ethiopians will suffice for that.”

Yifru paused looking out the windows at the towering mountains and thought about the statesmen in Geneva. He could not help wondering how futile was this attempt to try to persuade them that Ethiopia should not be thrown to the wolves. He started again.

“Is the victim of the aggression to be invited by the League to submit to the aggressor and, in the interests of world peace, to abandon the defense of its independence and integrity against its powerful enemy on the grounds that the latter’s resolve to exterminate its victim is unshakable?

“Is the victim to be placed under the implicit threat of abandonment by the League and to be deprived of all hope of succor?

“This matter, which is the main problem for future international relations among peoples, whatever their appearance, their race, or their power may be, ought it not, first of all, to come up before the League, and be examined openly with full freedom and before the eyes of the whole world?”

As Yifru was finishing the communiqué, Ceseli came up beside him. He handed her the letter and she read it carefully. “He’s not going to give in, is he?”

“No. He will send this to Geneva and protest the bombing of innocent civilians. He cannot surrender our country, which has remained free for over three thousand years, unless the League of Nations compels us to accept such a judgment.”

“Which it can’t?”

“Which it won’t! The British and French seem to think they’re doing us a favor. They think these are the best terms we could expect. I don’t believe that. The best we could have gotten was the embargo on raw materials and the munitions loan the emperor asked for. I would like to know what Mussolini has said of this proposal. I don’t suppose we will.”

While the emperor was sending his protest to the League of Nations, Mussolini was in Rome toying with the Hoare-Laval appeasement proposal that he had received the week before. In the meantime, he had chosen to make no public mention of it. That was not because he was totally indifferent. The plan did have certain advantages. Foremost of which the fact that the League would probably not apply an oil embargo while the Hoare-Laval was under discussion. That alone would buy him time.

Early that morning, Il Duce was driven in his huge black FIAT Balilla through the area along the coast to the South of Rome known as the Pontine Marshes. He was on his way to attend the dedication of Pontinia, the latest of the towns reclaimed by draining the malaria infested swamps. The reclamation of these Pontine Marshes, begun in 1931, was one of the accomplishments for which Mussolini could not be criticized. His plans had provided homes and land for more than fifty thousand people.

Mussolini was going to Pontinia because it would provide the opportunity for an important speech he wanted to make. Without preamble he began:

“The Italian people are capable of resisting a very long siege, especially when it is certain in the clearness and tranquility of their conscience that right is on their side, while wrong is on the side of Europe, which in the present circumstances is dishonoring itself. The war we have begun on African soil is a war of civilization and liberation. It is the war of the poor, disinherited, proletarian Italian people. Against us are arrayed the forces of reaction, of selfishness, and hypocrisy. We have embraced a hard struggle against this front. We shall continue this struggle to the end. It will take time, but once a struggle is begun, it is not time that counts, but victory.”

He waited while the cheering continued, then waved his hand to silence his audience. He needed to hurry back to Rome for an important and scenographic ritual.

For this important occasion, Mussolini chose an entirely black military uniform to set off his Fascist black shirt. It was already dark and cold on the evening of December 18 as Il Duce looked out at the huge square filled with women. GOLD FOR THE FATHERLAND was to be a propitious ceremony: a truly massive exchange of gold wedding rings for iron ones, each with the inscription Gold for the Fatherland.

The focal point this evening was the Altar of the Fatherland, the audacious white marble wedding cake monument at the side of Piazza Venezia built in memory of the unification of Italy and its first king, Vittorio Emanuele II. A huge flame rose from a giant crucible on the steps of the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. The flame was meant to suggest that the gold began melting as soon as it fell into the crucible.

Now, as Mussolini watched, Queen Elena, tall and erect, began the procession and with great dignity dropping into the crucible not only her own, but also the King’s ring. Then came Mussolini’s own wife, Rachel, and the wives of other officials.

After the more celebrated wives had made their sacrifices, the ordinary women of Rome, at least two hundred fifty thousand, took part in the ritual in a seemingly endless procession walking up the steps of the monument to the flaming crucible. Like these women, were millions of other women with as much solemnity in every other Italian city or town.

Mussolini never disclosed how much gold he collected in the “Gold for the Fatherland” ceremonies, but whatever its monetary value, it was surpassed by the psychological benefit of winning over the Italian women who were now completely on his side.